“She forced the judge to lock the settlement into a trust that only matures when you’re ready to claim it.”

“Now we finish her work.”

Arthur slid a blue pen across the desk toward my hand.

“Sign the petitioner line at the bottom of the second page,” he said.

I signed my name exactly as it appeared on the old trust documents.

“Twenty days until the final probate filing deadline,” Arthur said.

“We end this tomorrow afternoon.”

The next morning, I sat perfectly still in a floral wingback chair in the corner of the First Horizon Bank lobby.